Growth Mindset: Reaction

Listen to other people gripe often enough, and you'll pick up on a couple of points pretty quickly: it was always better back in the day, and every system is broken.

Not to say that either one of those complaints is necessarily invalid, just a bit overworked. That said, after hearing enough about how unprepared my generation is for the real world of jobs, Dweck's growth mindset findings make perfect sense.

In some ways, I tend to come up against a fixed-mindset wall myself. Not in the sense that I quit trying to improve once I've achieved a certain level of success—I push myself a little too hard for that—but in that I'm much more likely to drop something if I'm not achieving enough success. It's not exactly flattering, but I'm not a good loser, so I either get frustrated and quit, or decide my time is better spent elsewhere and move on to some new task or project.

That's one reason I'm glad to have had Dweck's findings pointed out to me, because it's a good time in my life for it. It's my last year of school, so I'm doing a lot of thinking as I get ready to take that final bow—thinking about what I've achieved here, what I want to achieve in the future, what kind of job and life I want to set out to make happen.

A lot of the time, at this point in life, it's more encouraged to think smart instead of think big, to be grounded by steady, realistic goals. And as much as I think that's important to keep in mind, I think it's more important not to be held back by that, not to get wrapped up in and strangled by your safety net. At the end of the day, that's the main thing I want to avoid—and by keeping all of this and Dweck's growth-mindset proof in mind, that's what I plan to do.



Image Credit: Growth Mindset Meme Cat by Laura Gibbs. Source: Growth Mindset Memes.